


everyday makes me wanna die.

by Prettything_uglylie



Series: the leaflets that fall out when you shake the book [6]
Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Canon Compliant, Heavy Angst, Homophobic Language, Internal Monologue, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, No Dialogue, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:07:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25577056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prettything_uglylie/pseuds/Prettything_uglylie
Summary: every morning, alex standall drinks his coffee.
Relationships: Zach Dempsey/Alex Standall
Series: the leaflets that fall out when you shake the book [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1415044
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	everyday makes me wanna die.

**Author's Note:**

> fun facts about this fic:   
> \- i had it started before season 4   
> \- I miss zalex and wish we got our endgame (no shade to charlie but shipppp)   
> \- I had no idea Justin was going to die in s4 when writing that and it makes his part even sadder  
> \- I love alex's dad and I don't think poorly of him but I think Alex has a difficult relationship with his sexuality, masculinity and his father because he sees him as the Perfect Man. 
> 
> anyways this fic actually means a lot to me and hits a bit deeply in my chest as I write and post it. i hope you like it!

every morning, alex standall drinks his coffee. his coffee is poured into one of the blue ceramic cups with the black liners and he pours in the flick of his wrist splash of milk and one and a quarter sugars. he is only aware because it took him so long to allow himself to not drink it black.

his father drinks his coffee black. 

his father is a man. his father is a man, with a wife and two children and a gaze that only lingers on a women's breasts and alex has been so envious, alex will always be envious. alex will be envious until he dies; alex will be envious that he cannot be a man in the same ways as his father or peter. 

his body feels small, too small, too fragile and he feels like a girl. he knows - _and knows, and knows, and knows_ \- that being a girl is not an insult, hears it thrown from so many lips of lip glossed stained mouths in crowded hallways and he knows, in a deep part of himself, that there is nothing wrong with it when he slides his hand into a boy named michael's dark coffee-colored hand and alex wants to drink him. wants to pour him into his mug and know this boy, to understand his thoughts and feelings, his hopes and dreams, wants to know what his lips feel like or what his voice sounds like when he's clutching at his sheets as he touches himself in the morning - alex wonders if michael thinks of girls, or boys, or alex himself, when he touches himself and he feels like a voyeur in his own thoughts. alex asks him if he drinks his coffee black. 

he does. 

they go get coffee together after class and at the end, in a desperate shake of what alex had both been hoping and dreading, michael pulls him close and kisses him goodbye. 

the next day, the school is scuttling about and it is alive with a roar. 'alex standall is gay' is an overwhelming theme in the rhythmic beats of people's tongues and on his locker is besmirched a red word three-letter word; fag. michael dismisses his eyes in class, keeps his head down and tucks it so far down that alex could no longer find him when he leaves. 

oh well, what did alex expect? 

michael drinks his coffee black. 

* * *

he ends up in liberty high school, which is as much a nightmare as a dream. 

liberty high carries its problems both on the largest and smallest degrees; there are rapists - hungry, privileged boys, who have only been told ' _no_ ' inbetween giggling laughs, who think the word ' _no_ ' itself is a joke - roaming the halls and the coffee machine is broken. 

he doesn't know if hannah and jessica think he's gay. he doesn't know and he doesn't ask because asking is admitting and when they meet him, he is drinking his coffee black. they offer him friendship in forms of playful tests or in small smiles; it feels like the purity of white milk pouring into his ceramic coffee cup to offer him a reprieve. 

they're nice to him. 

he still drinks black coffee and walks backward. 

* * *

they teach him things. 

the lessons begin simply; who people are and what they do or who they know or why they're important. 

clay jensen, jessica starts and neither hannah nor jess say anything particular about him but the glow in hannah's eye when she whispers the word 'helmet' between periwinkle lips, says enough about him. 

hannah's rose-pink lips also perk out the name of _justin foley._ justin foley, as dissected under people who think they know him, is a jock, an athlete, a _man_. hannah prefaces alex's tutorial on justin foley with the fact that he is pansexual - alex knows what it means, he's a teenage boy in 2018, he knows what it means, but it fits heavy on his tongue when he repeats it. justin isn't afraid, justin is out and open and confident. 

or justin foley has yet to be grazed by a bullet. 

they haven't lowered him into his coffin yet. 

they introduce him, more and more; ryan shaver - gay, tony padilla - gay, bryce walker, monty de la cruz - carrying the same bullets, sheri holland, courtney crimson, tyler down, jeff atkins and - and, and zach dempsey. 

* * *

alex makes friends quickly. 

he forces himself to fall out of line with jessica and hannah, because the more he spends time with them without making a move often is more times that he hears 'fag' roll off monty's lips - _oh, monty,_ alex will think back a few years later, _daggering me with your sins doesn't make it easier. we're both just trying to survive here._

but alex is not scared of the word. the word does not chase him down the hallway like it did at his old school, justin foley doesn't let it. justin foley slams his hand against monty de la cruz's chest and says 'back off' or 'stop it' but never swears in on words like 'he's not gay' like hannah snarls at the jocks who try to chase him away with those words when she hears them. justin knows it isn't the base that's the problem either, knows the idea isn't a threat, meets his eye and nods and promises the assurance of safety in his wine-shade lips. 

justin foley and he become friends built around that promise.

* * *

he asks justin if justin drinks coffee. 

he doesn't. 

he says he prefers something tougher but spares alex a wink of cerulean blue eyes as he pours more wine in a red solo cup, in a trashed excuse of a heart. 

* * *

justin does drink wine. 

justin drinks wine in the same way that his wine-red lips spill onto alex's, like he's holding it carelessly and spills it all over alex in a moment of reckless abandon. justin doesn't realise what his wine does and instead, kisses alex with teasing strokes of his tongue making appearances with the same grace that his mother stirs honey into her tea. justin spills wine over him and alex is stained with it as though he's dressed head-to-toe in white; it makes him feel small, dumb, everyone can see the stains, he's sure but then justin is pulling away, and spinning the bottle again and a few girls in the group look mildly turned on while the boys range between arousal and confusion. 

he leaves the room a few minutes later. the music was starting to hurt his head, he lies and justin sends him a puffy-lipped smile with a nod while alex pretends he doesn't see concern in zach dempsey's eyes. 

justin has just spilled more wine all over the carpet and alex feels dizzy. 

it's almost funny how much wine looks like blood when spilled.

* * *

hannah dies, they all collect their lies and alex cries. 

alex cries buried in his room; alex stops crying when his dad comes in. his dad is a foreign object, is a soldier, is a threat, is a father, is a thing to be feared as much as he is a thing to be loved. his father is a _man_. a man with a gun and an authority that does not need to be checked.

alex has heard stories about people like him and men with guns. 

his father isn't the problem, it's the wine rushing through his blood. or it's the coffee. or it's the gun. 

* * *

tyler down is nice. 

tyler down is nice and weird and looks at alex like he knows he shouldn't but can't bring himself to stop. tyler down looks at him like he wishes to frame him in a picture, like he wishes to touch alex and like he wishes - oh, how he seems to wish he didn't feel that way either. 

alex likes tyler, they have the same sickness. 

alex asks tyler if he likes coffee. 

tyler says he likes his coffee black, but alex doesn't believe him. 

* * *

alex tries to kill himself. 

hannah's tapes have leaked everywhere like tar; tainting everything beyond recognition and staining it all black. hannah's tapes are her truth and alex can't unhear them, can't help but flinch every time he thinks of the first tape, of how he knows the feeling garnered by justin foley spilling wine onto your lap and you trying to learn to love the taste. he hates his own, hates that boy because he knows that boy. he sees that boy across from him in the mirror, the boy who carries the tire iron in his clenched fist and he knows him -- he is the boy that drinks his coffee black and enjoys it. 

his hand is on the gun and his hand shakes. should he not feel like a man? is this not the man his father became? is this not a man? a man with a gun? a _man_? 

he pulls the trigger and still doesn't feel like a man. 

even as they wheel him to the emergency room. 

* * *

alex standall doesn't die. 

when he wakes up, the sun is too bright and the sheets are stained white but there's no sign of blood or wine or anything else staining the sheets, just his skin, just his dirty body. 

zach dempsey is sitting at the bedside, clutching alex's pale hand in both of his broad manly hands and asleep, head resting against the ivory sheets. 

his coffee sits on the bedside table.

alex wonders if zach drinks his coffee black. 

he can't check, his body feels broken. 

* * *

when he kisses zach on that rooftop, it feels like waking up even though there's no coffee in his bloodstream. he doesn't need it, he has zach. 

and that is almost enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked this! kudos and comments are heavily appreciated!


End file.
